Pune: The Pune Rural police have registered three cases against three people for allegedly providing their bank accounts to cybercrooks as mule accounts. The Pimpri Chinchwad police and Pune city police have also registered more than 20 cases against mule bank account holders over the last two days.Police investigations revealed that transactions worth more than Rs 1 crore were routed through these bank accounts. Each account is linked to complaints lodged by victims from different parts of the country.The action was part of Operation Mule Hunt. The Pimpri Chinchwad cyber police analysed data from the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP). Police teams verified suspicious bank accounts in Pune district, Pimpri Chinchwad and Pune city before registering cases against the account holders.The Pune Rural police registered cases at the Manchar, Baramati Rural and Lonavla City police stations. The Pimpri Chinchwad police registered cases at the Bavdhan, Dighi, Chikhali and Sant Tukaramnagar police stations, while the Pune city police registered cases at 12 police stations.Operation Mule HuntOperation Mule Hunt was launched to trace mule bank accounts used by cybercriminals to route money obtained through online frauds. The operation also aims to identify and arrest mule account holders and agents, freeze such bank accounts, and strengthen coordination between the state cyber police and banks.Mule bank accountsCybercrooks often obtain bank accounts from daily wage workers, students and small traders by offering commissions or deceiving them. These accounts are then used to route money siphoned off through online share trading frauds, task frauds and digital arrest scams. In some cases, the fraudsters also misuse people’s identity documents to open current accounts, enabling them to transfer large sums of money through those accounts.
